NEW ZEALAND AND ITS ITINERANT CRITICS.

Evening Star, Issue 2902, 7 June 1872, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND AND ITS ITINERANT CRITICS.

Of late there have appeared in the Aus tralasian effusions by gentlemen who have done the round of the Colony by “ excursion steamer, ” in which they have given the readders of that journal the benefit of their impressions of New Zealand, its towns and its people. These contributions have in many instances been the reverse of flattering, and often bristled with untruths. So gross have been the mis-statements which have appeared of late, that they have called forth contradictions from several gentlemen in the Colony—notably from Mr J. C. Firth of Auckland, who has ably refuted many assertions made by a contributor of Maori legends. Not long since there appeared in the Australasian sketches, entitled “ Round about New Zealand” by Olympus, whose references to ; unedin were republished here. Mr Giffard, editor of the Evening Post, in a capital letter to the same paper, shows the inaccuracy, to use the mildest word, of Olympus’s observations. We give that portion of his letter which deals with Dunedin. * 1 Olympus ” sneers at New Zealand banks as follows : “ New Zealand vi'lages everywhere indulge in banks, centuries, I should imagine, in advance of the capabilities or resources of these fledgling places, and Outram was no exception. Why, the very fact of “ fledgling places ’ presenting themselves to the visitor provided with banks, is surely a sign of rapid financial progress. He is probably not aware that the white population alone of New Zealand is already one-third that of Victoria. In 1870, the expenditure of the General Government was i 1,649,919, besides that of the ten Provincial Governments added together, L 1,312,073 ; the imports amounting in value to £#4,639,000, and the exports to L 4,822,756 —of which upwards of two millions was gold. Outram, of which he speaks, is a rising township on the road between the busy city and port of Dunedin

and very productive gold-mining districts, in connection with one of the most fertile and extensive agricultural tracts of land in New Zealand. Why is it premature to hare a bank there ‘i The only wonder is there are not two. ‘ ‘ Olympus ” complains that the manager had * 1 comfortably locked up ”at 1 o’clock. Perhaps it was Saturday, or some other day agreed upon as the half-holiday of the week by the business men of the place. I view with more pity than contempt the sneers of “Olympus” at Scotchmen generally, at “ Dunedin in its glory, revelling in its saintly and Presbyterian glory on Sundays,” and at “ men on the ‘ Saaboth ’ day wearing the most melancholy of Glasgow ‘gudeness.’” I am neither a Presbyterian nor a Scotchman j but I deplore the ignorance or vulgarity of the man who can ridicule the preservation of their old habits, whether social or religious, by the descendants of those conscientious seceders from the endowed Kirk of Scotland, who, led by that most worthy and respected Peninsular veteran the late Captain William Cargill, and by their equally respected pastor the late Thomas Burns, a neph-w of the poet Robert, founded Dunedin on the uninhabited shores of a harbor nearly at the antipodes of “ Auld Reekie,” twenty-five years ago. In the name of many well-informed and

experienced colonists of my own personal acquaintance, I seriously beg yon not to allow yourself to be imposed upon by such vapid, meaningless, and abqve all, scribbling. If you really wish for correct information as to Hew Zealand, I can assure you that there are dozens of educated gentle; men in every part of tire Colony who can observe correctly and to the point, confine their remarks on what they have observed to that which is really admirable, whether for beauty or utility, and clothe their thoughts in language far more pleasing and readable than that of the superficial fizgig, who has inflicted upon you the dreary dribbling* of “Olympus.”